Written by: Shermika Harvey on February 21, 2019

Not often does one get the privilege to enter into the inner sanctum of another culture. To be able to see inside the way the people go about their daily lives and embracing the world through their eyes. The East Meets West Advance 2018 with George Fox University provided just that experience.

Before attending the advance, your thoughts and heart engage with the lives of the people through readings that connect you to the heartbeat of the culture. Though the texts are great nothing prepares you for the moment when the pages come to life before your eyes. The moment with the familiar is relevantly unfamiliar, and everything you thought of Hong Kong tantalizes your senses.

The sounds of the people in the marketplace, children in the schoolyards, and the hush sounds in the crowded subways. Extra moments are taken to breathe in the bountiful city landscapes and intentionality design beautiful architecture in the high rise building. Slower strides are made as you pass the parks filled with people of multiple nationalities, Indian, African, Chinese, Norweign, and the thought comes to mind of how similar our cultures are yet different. We all have different ways of thinking, religious, family traditions, socio-economic statuses but we are all also God’s creations. Created different with our individual paths.

Your horizons widen as you embrace the vision of a people of strength and hope facing a future yet unknown to them. A struggle to balance the haves and have-nots, the Chinese or Hong Kongers, the future or now, meet them every day. However, when they speak wisdom flows from deep places of experience and grit. From the young people in the Umbrella Revolution to the asylum seekers from South Africa, Sir Lanka and more, their stories force the challenger to arise in all that hear them.

You will leave the advance fully aware of who you are and the part you play in this big beautiful world. You will understand that culture does not divide us, it unites us.

As we continue on this journey of life we will see things from a different of view; a different view of looking beyond the lens, if you would.

About the Author

Shermika Harvey